Chapter Text
From the bridge, Jared Padalecki can see a wall of dark shaded buildings decorated with a million multi-coloured neon lights. A myriad of them, like glittering jewels strewn across the cold night sky. It’s beautiful, taking his breath in small huffs of frozen air, as he shivers against the biting wind and pouring rain. He’s getting soaked and ordinarily he might wonder if he’s going to catch a cold or worse.
But not tonight. Because this night it doesn’t matter.
Against the backdrop of a city that doesn’t sleep he’s about to plunge into the belly of a fierce and heartless lover. Drown real deep in the icy waters of her arms and loose all sense of himself before she sucks him under. It’s poetic and that’s ironic for a man that’s never been full of words. Jared’s all about movement, the snapshot of a busy life caught on the run. It’s what he does, take pictures of living works of art, and he’s damned good at it. Or at least he was. His ability to capture the brilliance of a moment in a photograph has catapulted him to fame and riches beyond his wildest expectation, and launched him into a career with the high flying paparazzi. Leading the hunting pack, Jared’s had feature spreads in almost every glossy magazine and newspaper known to man.
As he perches on the brink of ultimate destruction, Jared’s not so far gone he can’t hope for a miracle that someone will save him. Maybe, if he could pray, it might make a difference. Truth is Jared can’t, and he’s not surprised when his wishes go unanswered.
Nothing will change. Not now. Not when it’s far too late for sorry. And too late for regret.
All in all it adds up to why he’s here, and the cold hard fact – his life will end tonight on this lonely, quiet bridge.
Feeling more at peace than he has for weeks, Jared takes a second to close his eyes. Centring on the stillness he can feel around him. He sinks beneath the muted rumble of relentless traffic and the slow wail of sirens racing in the distance. Life will still continue without him. Ever moving. Ever present.
He breathes in deep because what he feels now is real. This poised minute before he lets go is full of pain. It’s everything he’s shut out for so damn long and can’t hold back anymore. The sadness of it all swallows him, because it’s not just loss and anger killing him, its joy and laughter too. The remembrance of days he took for granted along with the sweet memory of being held and loved.
If he needs a deeper reminder of the life he could have had, Jared only needs to take out the crumpled photo he’s got hiding in his pocket. It’s an insignificant picture, not even one of Jared’s best, but it’s captured in classic black and white a man, who sits in profile, so very, very well. Jared’s fingers itch to take it out and look at it once more, but he can’t. He mustn’t, because he’ll hesitate and wonder if there is a chance, a slim and desperate dream that he may be forgiven for what he’s done. It doesn’t matter though, because the man he’s framed against pale lamplight is ingrained within his memory. He’s the most perfect illustration of beauty that Jared’s ever seen. An icon of the modern world shot in the glamour of black and white photography he’s sophistication and elegance in shaded tones of dark and light.
But the photo is only the tip of the iceberg. There’s more. So, much more that it makes Jared ache real deep inside. This man’s turned Jared’s world inside out and upside down. He’s a complex puzzle of contradictions and more than a mystery to Jared, he’s someone Jared loves with all his heart. And that’s not the worst or best of it. Jared thought he knew what love was but it’s meant nothing against the feelings that have been swamping him the past few months.
Taking a deep and unsteady breath, Jared wraps his arms around himself, feeling the bones of his ribcage stick into him. A further reminder of just how far he’s sunk. Once appearance was everything and he’d taken pride in his 6’4’ physique of solid muscle. Now it’s no more than a nuisance he has to tolerate. His clothes are hanging baggy and he’s not shaved since yesterday. Sleep is a distant memory and he’s sporting sunken hollow eyes. Jared’s hardly the man that had once bagged one of the most desirable men on the planet. It goes some way to demonstrating just how hard and far he’s crashed.
Nausea sweeps over Jared, suddenly, like a scalding pan of boiling water and he retches over the rail. Seems even killing himself is hard and he’s scared sick that he’ll stuff it up. Maybe get his leg stuck and end up dangling like some grotesque marionette, or that he’ll panic and change his mind half way down. With his mind whirling off the chart, Jared pulls himself together and climbs up onto the ledge. From his precarious position on the frayed edges of sanity and madness it feels fitting that he has some time to reflect. To look back on a life that’s been less than sterling.
To remember that once upon a time in a land that wasn’t far, far away, Jared had been a fair and decent man, and not just the monster and liar he’s become.
****
Five Years Ago
Chad Michael Murray, life long sticky tape on the disaster that’s been Jared’s life is the best friend he’s never deserved. Like partners in crime they’d met up as they bungled their way through college and continued as flat mates when they’d headed for the big city. With Jared earning virtually nothing as a freelance, fledgling photographer it had been Chad who’d picked up all the bills. With no artistic talent, Murray had turned his hand to finance. He’d done well, somehow graduating with honours and walking into a nice family firm of accountants that paid above the going rate.
In those halcyon days, Jared had lived by his ambition and dreamt of being discovered for his art. Painstakingly visualising each graphic detail to the letter. Taking hours to capture the right moment and waiting days to generate the right atmosphere. Despite living hand to mouth he’d been happy then; creating black and white masterpieces of ruined buildings and steaming vents with grey lined skies.
In those fresh naïve moments he’d had no worries. He’d got Chad to lean on when no one else saw his talent, and Chad to depend on when everyone had given up.
“Dude, you worry too much,” Chad retorted, lounging on the same ratty sofa he'd owned back in college. “I’ll cover the rent and the electric, go out and have some fun for once. Better still get laid!”
Chad, for all his best friendly, advice still believed that sex could cure most of life’s issues. Nice idea and Jared would even have beeen open to trying it, if only he could get over his last relationship disaster.
Jared’s hesitation doesn’t go unmissed. “Lame, Padalecki. Very lame,” Chad intoned seriously, in a voice he saved for clients who have gotten drastically into debt.
“But, I….” Jared’s attempt to defend himself end up shot down in flames.
“Grow some balls will you! I’m not asking you to marry someone. Damn it, Jared why does everything have to be so serious with you?”
Jared’s wondered the same thing many times but it’s like he can’t help it. He has zero control of his emotions and girls seem to know this. Which is why Jared’s been engaged three times. He just doesn’t know how to do sex with no strings attached. For him it’s full on hearts and flowers from the starting gate. He can’t help it. He’s an old fashioned guy with old fashioned values.
“I mean you’d only known the girl for two fuckin’ weeks! What in gods name were you thinking of?”
Spelt out like that Jared had to wince. “She was lovely, real hot and….”
“Yeah, yeah she was a fox, but man she was a stripper and when she realised you really didn’t have any money she dumped your ass!”
Ouch. But then truth often hurts.
“Do you have to?” Jared complained. It wasn’t like he meant to propose. It just sought of fell out of his mouth while he was getting a blow job.
“Sorry,” Chad replied with a face that was distinctly anything but. “Think with your dick by all means, but just don’t let the damn thing take control of your vocal cords!”
Fiddling with his favourite camera, an old Canon SLR he’d inherited from his father, Jared snapped the cover back across the lens, “I do not!”
“Purleeease,” Chad theatrically swooned. “Oooh, Cindy that feels so good. Yeah, suck it harder and we’ll look at rings tomorrow. Seriously, Jared your porn voice is a pile of shit!”
“CHAD!” Jared protested, looking shocked.
But in unrepentant Chad style, Murray simply grinned, “Baby, deeper. Go on take it down and we’ll ask you sister to be bridesmaid.”
For anyone listening it would appear that Chad’s gone slightly cuckoo. But in all honestly while Jared might not make swooping gestures of eternal devotion, he does have a bad habit of promising the world.
“Okay, laugh it up smarty pants, but you watch it you’ll be the next one married.”
Chad managed to spend the next five minutes recovering from hysterics. “Dude, you soooo kill me!”
“Knock it off. So I need to go out and get laid but I can’t. I’ve got this exhibition coming up. I need to be on top of my game,” Jared sighed, perching on the arm of the couch.
“Jay, you’re always on top, it’s not healthy.” For a second Jared wondered if they were talking about his job or his sex life. “What chance does a bird have if you’ve always got that damned camera in your hand?” Not waiting for an answer Chad plunged ahead, “I’ll tell you, Jay. None. A big fat and shiny none!”
Jared would like to have protested that he’s not so bad, but given that he’s sat there with one of his six cameras pleading ignorance isn’t going to work. “Okay, you win alright?”
Chad, not that he crows much, does a winning dance with his arms, “That’s more like it! So, where we going?”
Jared sighed, picking up a saggy cushion to smack over Chad’s head, “One of these days….”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll go too far. Man, get in line. There’s more than a quarter of the wealthiest people in Manhattan would like to do that.” It’s a slightly scary thought that, actually, Chad’s revelation is an accurate glimpse of the perils working as an accountant in NY can bring.
Jared sobered up, “Dude, do you have to say that. It’s just plain creepy.”
“Fact of life Jared. Fact of life. It comes with the territory. If you could only guess some of the things I’ve seen and heard since we moved here.”
“Far cry from being a college boy then?” Jared joked in an attempt to lighten the mood, but for some reason it fell flat.
Chad shrugged, “Fuck, I could tell you no end of stuff. Man, if you were working for a newspaper or something you’d never be out of work.”
The words ‘never out of work’ are like ice to Jared. Dripping mocking reality in his face. His pictures are good and they invoke every emotion known to man, but the one thing they don’t do, however, is pay the bills. For that Jared relies on Chad.
It should be noted that at this point Jared hadn’t wandered from the base line he’d chalked up in the sand. He was an artist and not a hack. Relishing the opportunities he’d won to exhibit his artwork to the public. Working on a local or national newspaper or even a glossy magazine sounded like career suicide. It’s where the wanna be’s of artistic genius all ended up. Jared had no intention of being ‘a wanna be.’ To him there is no good reason to throw away your life’s ambition away for money.
But in counterpoint Jared also hadn’t been to Table 50 yet and had the encounter with the hack that would change his life forever.